Chapter 41: Demonstration

2ND APR 2023~ VERALUCTL

On the table was a full set of knives as well as a syringe, various types of needles, and paint.

Bai Zhihe put on his gloves and laid out the objects one by one. Zhai Haidong, He Jingming, and Zui She sat around the table. Bai Zhihe nodded to He Jingming. “We found these in a small garage near Xiao Lin’s corpse; our men managed to retrieve it before the police arrived. Director, we are very sorry about Xiao Lin.”

He Jingming ignored him and picked up a knife with clear bloodstains on it. “This is it?”

Bai Zhihe nodded. “Our men have identified it as such.”

“What did they mean by it? Did they see something and didn’t have time to move these things away?” Zhai Haidong suddenly paused and raised his voice. “Come in.”

The guard by the entrance immediately pulled the door open. Mo Cong stood outside, maintaining a knocking position. He seemed shocked at first, then quickly smiled. “My brother Zhai, your ears are even better than bats’.”

Zhai Haidong nodded without much comment and accepted his ambiguous words of praise. “Chancellor, what are you here for?”

“You’re asking this while already knowing the answer?” Mo Cong lowered his voice. With his hands propped up against the table, his eyes swept across the objects on it. Then he leisurely put on a glove, took a knife, and weighed it in his hand. “Good knife; it probably chops up heads like watermelons. What are you discussing for? They obviously left these things as a demonstration. If I’m not wrong, there were quite a lot of drugs left in that syringe, right? And you’re all sitting in a circle just to discuss this?”

His tone was clearly too arrogant; Zui She didn’t say anything but He Jingming’s expression darkened. He looked cooly at Mo Cong, but spoke to Zhai Haidong. “Shui Shi, this man of yours… He sure goes by his own rules.”

“Oh, thank you so much!” Mo Cong grinned at He Jingming coldly. He felt his temper rise just remembering how this pervert had taken advantage of An Jie in his car. “But I don’t count as Brother Zhai’s man. At most, I just help out with some of his errands and sightsee the larger world with him.”

“Chancellor,” Zhai Haidong half-heartedly reminded.

Mo Cong chuckled, straightened his back, then took a step to the side. “If I don’t take a look at who the legend who slipped out from right under my nose was, where would I put my pride?” He side-eyed He Jingming. Seeing him sneer and prepare to speak up, Mo Cong quickly stopped monologuing and turned meaningfully to Zhai Haidong. “Right, brother? You don’t need to be so anxious; even considering the worst, you still have Chen Fugui. That old devil is good for nothing but drugs – really, it’s like he wants to stick his foot into every illegal den there is in Beijing – so just get him to check for you later. And the brothers all around Beijing… are they not all behind you? Didn’t you spend all this effort just to have everyone with you to go against that Li person?”

He bit down hard on the words “all of Beijing” and patted Zhai Haidong leisurely on the shoulder. “You’re all people who can shake all of China with a single stomp. Why are you so nervous about a dead man?”

Everyone was stunned into silence at those words. Even Zui She took off his glasses and scrutinized the young man in front of him with narrowed eyes. 

Why Old Gun Zhai suddenly began sparking fights between the gangs of Beijing when he was busy white-washing himself, why he started talking to Chen Fugui who he had always looked down upon, and why he spent so much effort to trick the Chancellor to his side. In just a few words, this young man seemed to have subtly pointed out and seen through everything, even the biggest secret in their hearts. 

After a while, Zui She shook his head. “Looks like we’re dead in the water.1”

Mo Cong nodded at him. “I’ve heard my brothers mention you, and that nephew of yours also turns out is a friend of mine.”

Of course, Zui She knew that the ‘unreliable Mo brat’ An Jie had talked about was this man: the Chancellor that Zhai Haidong had pulled to his side using a thousand tricks. He felt that An Jie’s words were biased. This Chancellor, he really was something. Even though he seemed to be revealing all of his abilities, he knew when to take a step back and judged the situation with clear eyes like a newly sharpened sword–

Dangerous, but interesting enough to make one’s blood boil. 

Young people, after all. But before Zui She had time to lament using his limited vocabulary, Mo Cong announced with a grin, “Oh, and about that nephew of yours – I’m pursuing him. I thought I’d best tell you first.”

Continents sank, the Pacific flooded the Himalayas. A woodpecker collided with a helicopter in the atmosphere, Saturn crossed into Mars’ orbit, the Milky Way collapsed.

Zui She was dumbfounded. So there were this many bizarre accidents in life… It was good to be alive.

He Jingming lost it a little and broke off the little head of the china bowl. Everyone turned to stare at him. After a while, He Jingming forced out ambiguously through gritted teeth, “Young people, truly young.”

Mo Cong smiled a little without replying, then turned to Bai Zhihe. “Bai-dage, you haven’t told us yet, was there anything left in the syringe?”

Bai Zhihe glanced at him appraisingly. “Yes.” He nodded at the man by the door. “Bring it up.”

After a short while, a gloved man brought over a glass box. Within the box was a dead mouse, its smell leaving a lasting impression. Mo Cong looked carefully at the mouse – it wasn’t small and was quite meaty too, but for some reason, its head hung as if sucked dry. 

Bai Zhihe said: “What we injected into the mouse was a diluted portion of the liquid. Five minutes after injection, the mouse died; within fifteen minutes, it was as if all the nutrients in the mouse’s head and its brain plasma were sucked dry, but its abdomen grew strangely bloated.” He stood up and took out a small bottle, carefully turning to each of them. “This is what we extracted from the mouse’s abdomen. As for what it is exactly… we have not reached a conclusion but we are certain that it is some sort of life form.”

Zui She stared at the bottle for a while and suddenly spoke up. “Let me have a look.”

“Be careful.” Bai Zhihe handed the bottle to him. “It might be corrosive.”

Zui She took the bottle and looked at the silver sparkles in the filthy liquid inside. What glittered seemed to be very, very small sequins, floating around the liquid like fish in water. Pretty, but a chill ran down his spine.

An Jie had mentioned it… the brain-eating bugs in the desert! Li, what had you done?

=====================================================

This child, Xiao Yu, was too heavy-minded. That unfortunate four-eyes did deserve a beating: not only did he spend his days wrecking the nerves of girls with terribly written, goosebump-inducing letters, but he also went around spreading rumors of things he had allegedly done with them.

Xiao Yu had endured such actions that mitigated the development of the socialist spirit for a long time, refusing to tell anyone due to her pride. Finally though, when she had enough, instead of self-imploding, she snapped.

It really was difficult for high school girls to deal with overly-imaginative lechers. An Jie split off half of his mind to go listen to her hysterical ramblings and comfort her while he pondered why that man with the black-framed glasses had come.

Mo Jin held the hands of her younger sister and gently patted her back. She snuck a glance at An Jie but swallowed back her questions. The man with black frames had definitely called An Jie by another name and called people some eerie numbers. And what concerned her the most was that that person had said: Xiao Yu was the daughter of ‘Six’. 

Who did this ‘Six’ refer to? Li Biyun, or… her deceased father? She wanted to ask but for some reason, An Jie seemed so, so distant to her, deep in thought. She knew she wasn’t as smart as Xiao Yu but even she could feel that her brother and An Jie-ge were both hiding something. Something important with their safeties at stake. 

This feeling of being treated like a child and having everything kept away from her suddenly made her feel frustrated. Mo Jin secretly made a decision. 

That night, An Jie had just taken both girls home when Zui She asked to meet up. He didn’t agree immediately and only changed his clothes to leave when he heard the 

sound of Mo Cong returning home.

It sure was a draining life. During the day, the teachers pressured him and talked unendingly about how little they had left until the gaokao; if it wasn’t for these two girls, he really would have quit school. This graduation class wasn’t designed for humans. During the night, he had to act like some sort of underground worker too, always ready for the summons of boss Zui She.

Right, and he had to avoid Mo Cong. Every time, that brat stared at him with a certain goosebump-inducing gaze. He never said anything or did anything, only sending him flirtatious looks from time to time and making bodily contact with him that made him shiver. What the hell was this? An Jie had to push down his desire to give Mo Cong a lengthy lecture every time.

This child… he’s ill, he needs medication.

He pushed open his door and saw immediately that the sound-controlled lights were on. It was too late to go back. Mo Cong leaned against his unit door and looked at him with a smirk. “Going out?”

An Jie secretly rolled his eyes, but he closed the door and nodded. He was going to leave immediately but in the end, he was still worried and added, “Oh, yes, when I took Xiao Jin and Xiao Yu home today, I met someone from Li. Going by what he said, he seems to have his eyes on your Xiao Yu. Keep an eye on her.”

He left immediately after that. This unfortunate child, just one look at him costed about ten years of his life.

“Eh, wait.” Mo Cong suddenly grabbed his arm and said in a low voice, “You should be the one to be careful, don’t take it too far.”

All the hair on An Jie’s arms stood up, his scalp tightening from the words, goosebumps rushing all over to stand attention. Mo Cong watched as he pulled back his arm with a dark face and smiled even more. He added as if fearing he hadn’t done enough damage, “I’ll be waiting for you for supper.”

An Jie sighed. “Can’t you be a little seri…”

Mo Cong waved his hand and interrupted him in a gentle voice, “You should hurry up. Old Bai got his hands on a syringe from that Li-something today and extracted something after injecting it into a mouse. Zui She looked concerned when he saw it, I assume he’s in a hurry to find you. If there’s anything, we can talk later.”

An Jie didn’t have time to talk nonsense with him either. After a pause, he didn’t bother to reply and left in a hurry, only to hear Mo Cong slowly add behind him, “After all, I’ve already notified your Zui She… mm, ‘uncle’, that I’m chasing after you. We have a lot of time.”

For the first time, An Jie discovered that people could die from tripping on the stairs.

Author’s notes: Final use of the draft box, everyone please wait until I go back to school. It’s starting again… Sigh…

1The saying in Chinese is “new waves push again the old until the old waves die on the beach”. I used ‘dead in the water’ just for convenience.